Tuesday, March 4, 2014

There is at least one every year...

"Murphy" has been at it, again. It seems to never fail. The best looking seedling, the most interesting seedling, the best performing seedling seems always to be the one whose label has been lost. This one has gorgeous foliage and appears to have some very good vigor. It germinated last year and I don't know if I've ever seen it flower as the label was misplaced while potting the seedlings from the seed tables. We had extreme rain, somewhere close to 8"+ if the local Wunderground.com station is to be believed. The fog was so heavy this morning, there was water falling through the gutter downspouts from the house roof and the soil surface was actually wet. "Ma Nature", being the perverse entity she has proven herself to be here, is pushing the temperatures into the eighties this week. The sun has already been overly intense, providing rather intense heat where it shines directly, so there are already black spot and rust joining the nightly mildew. I never experience saw fly larvae (rose slugs) on this hill, but there is evidence of their presence in the seedling "pot ghetto". I'm not worried about any diseases which show up on most of the seedlings at this stage, not after the wildly fluctuating weather of the past week, except the mildew as that seems a bit more difficult for seedlings at this stage to work through. This one, though, is flat out pretty. Fortunately, it has flower buds which should open within the next week. I guess this one should be nicknamed, "Murphy"?